1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of packaging machines. More particularly, the present invention relates to the field of conveyors which cause packages to be loaded onto a receiving station in an assembly machine.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, packages of products which arrive at an automatic packaging machine arrive in a random manner and are not equally spaced apart. Prior art devices have not adequately addressed the problem on arranging the packages to be evenly spaced on the conveyor belt for receipt by the next device on the packaging line such as a collator. Prior art devices which have attempted to cause the packages to be evenly spaced encounter problems of deceleration when the conveyor is stopped and acceleration when the conveyor is restarted which results in the packages not being properly evenly spaced. There is a significant need for a device which enables packages to be evenly spaced on a conveyor belt in packaging machines.
The present invention is an apparatus to enable products to be evenly spaced so that they can be loaded onto a collator or other receiving device on a packaging machine.
It has been discovered, according to the present invention, that if packages are caused to be placed on a chain conveyor belt which has a multiplicity of spinning rollers to cause linear movement of the package along the chain conveyor belt, then a multiplicity of sensors which actuate a respective air driven cylinder to cause a friction plate to come in contact with a selected portion of the rollers at a location of a package will cause the linear movement of the package to stop for a given period of time so that the package can be appropriately spaced from the packages ahead of it and the packages behind it on the conveyor.
It has also been discovered, according to the present invention, that if linear movement along a chain conveyor is caused by the rotation of a multiplicity of continuously rotating rollers and rotations of the rollers is stopped by a friction plate coming in contact with a certain portion of the rollers, then upon removal of the friction plate, the rollers will automatically cause linear movement of the object on the rollers to continue without appreciable acceleration.
It has further been discovered, according to the present invention, that if a friction plate is attached to rollers to cause them to spin more rapidly, the linear movement created by the rollers will increase.
It has also been discovered, according to the present invention, that if an in-feed belt conveyor delivers packages onto a chain drive roller assembly, it is necessary to cause the chain drive roller assembly to cause faster linear movement of a package at the location where the in-feed belt delivers the package to the chain drive roller to create a separation of the package from the next package on the in-feed belt conveyor.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to enable packages of products which arrive on an automatic packaging machine and arrive in a random manner and are not equally spaced apart to become equally spaced apart in order to enable packages to be evenly received by a collating machine or the next machine in the automatic packaging assembly machine.
It is also an object of the present invention to enable linear movement of the conveyor belt along which the package travels to be stopped with near zero deceleration and restarted with near zero acceleration.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a conveyor assembly with a multiplicity of sensors so that different packages can be stopped and started at different locations along the conveyor.